With 120 staff and offices in Sweden and Norway, Framtiden specialises in helping early-stage career professionals find great jobs in the IT, tech and many other sectors.

Formed in 2004, Framtiden has ambitious plans for growth. The firm’s CRM and recruitment platforms are central to the business – ensuring that there are enough high-quality candidates to fill available roles.

“We weren’t happy with our old CRM and recruitment system, which lacked flexibility and integration”, explains Jenni Vartiainen, Chief Information Officer for Framtiden.

“The system was holding us back from evolving as a business. It did what we required at a fundamental level, but we wanted to introduce more automation and integration, and add more value”, she says.

“For example, if we wanted a new job search app, this would have been a long-winded process through the supplier, and it might have taken a year to develop. We needed a more agile approach.”

The team at Framtiden started looking for solutions.

“Zoho was one of the few that offered both CRM and recruitment systems – and at a very affordable price. So, we opted for Zoho”, explains Jenni.

The team was keen to find a partner in Europe to help them make a smooth transition from their existing system.

“We knew we would need expert support and advice externally and that’s how we found A2Z Cloud”, she adds.

Finding the right Zoho partner

A2Z Cloud is a Zoho Premium Partner and that was a key selling point for Framtiden. But it wasn’t the only attraction. Jenni and her colleagues wanted to partner with a firm with a good-sized development team to provide continuity of care and support.

“We were struck by A2Z Cloud’s very energetic and personal approach”, explains Jenni. “They said to us, ‘you know your business best and our job is to help make Zoho work for you’. We really liked that.”

After a successful pilot project, A2Z Cloud supported Framtiden with the migration of their Oslo office to Zoho CRM and Recruit. This was later rolled out across the firm’s seven Swedish offices.

“The new systems have been running for around a year”, says Jenni. “When we switched over, we didn’t want to bring in lots of new features immediately – our people needed to adapt to the new ways of working. The transition has gone well and Zoho is running smoothly. So, we are now starting to take things forward with new innovations.”

Taking the business forward

As a result of this work, Framtiden is now streamlining its client contact process for employers who are looking for new recruits. At the moment, a potential client submits a form on the website. Framtiden’s customer support team then passes the lead onto the sales team to arrange a call.

With the new system, potential clients are instantly connected with a sales representative in the relevant city. The sales rep makes a call to introduce the firm and discuss the client’s requirements.

“Using this new process, potential clients are immediately connected with a local sales representative – which is obviously much faster and there is less risk of the request getting mislaid”, explains Jenni.

A2Z Cloud has also been working with Framtiden to develop an integration that pushes job ads from Zoho Recruit to the Swedish public employment service’s job board and updates job listings in real-time. This obviously reduces manual input and effort.

“With the use of Zoho, and with A2Z Cloud’s support, we can now implement new features much faster”, says Jenni. “We can add new functionality, adjust our processes and collect new business data. This is making the lives of our recruitment and sales teams so much easier.”

Seeing the business benefits of Zoho’s products

Framtiden is now making use of Zoho One – which brings together many of Zoho’s most popular products in one package.

“Beyond the CRM and recruitment products, we are also exploring Zoho Social, for social media marketing, Zoho Backstage, for events, and Zoho Desk for customer care”, explains Jenni.

“What A2Z Cloud has brought is their deep knowledge and understanding of Zoho products. But they’ve also provided security for us as a business”, says Jenni. “We have a great in-house developer and want to do some of the new integrations ourselves internally. However, if we need additional expertise, A2Z Cloud are always on hand to support us. They’ve got our backs. “We wanted a partner who would support us to take our business forward and that’s exactly what A2Z Cloud has done.”